Beneath the Bleeding (19 page)

‘Good, thanks.’

‘Park yourself.’ Singh gestured at the chair opposite him and waved to the waiter. ‘Two large Cobras, soon as you like.’ His grin was open and friendly. ‘Now, do you trust me to order for both of us or what?’

Sam was in no doubt what the correct answer was. ‘Go ahead,’ he said, resigning himself to some gargantuan selection of over-sauced meat, unidentifiable vegetables and clumpy rice. He didn’t have to drive all the way to Dudley for that, but if that was what it took to find out what he needed to know about Rhys Butler, he’d swallow manfully and stop on the motorway for antacids.

‘I love this place,’ Singh confided. ‘Two of my uncles own it, but that’s just a bonus. I’d eat here every bloody night if I could.’

Sam tried to keep his eyes away from Singh’s sizeable belly and held back the obvious retort. ‘You can’t beat a good curry,’ he lied. Singh summoned the waiter and rattled off a stream of what Sam presumed to be Punjabi.

Singh turned his attention back to Sam. ‘So, you’re interested in Rhys Butler. Well, a nod’s as good as a wink round here, Sammy. It doesn’t take Brainiac to figure out that you’re on the Robbie Bishop case. Funny, I was talking about giving you lads a bell about our Rhys, but my sarge thought it was far too long a shot. And then you turn up on my voicemail, looking for a briefing.’ He gave a rolling laugh that turned heads three tables away. ‘Nice to be right.’

To be honest, Jonty, we’ve got fuck all to go at. This is me clutching at straws,’ Sam said. The waiter scurried up with a stack of spiced poppadoms and a plate of mixed pickles. Jonty fell on them like an attack dog on a kitten. Sam waited for his initial onslaught to pass, then delicately broke a piece off one. At least they were crisp and fresh, he thought as the smoky bite of black pepper tickled his soft palate.

‘So when the lovely Bindie told you about Rhys Butler, you thought you’d have a sniff around? Quite right, Sammy, just what I’d have done in your shoes.’

Sam didn’t bother to correct the misapprehension as to how Butler’s name had entered the investigation. ‘So what can you tell me about Rhys Butler?’

A foot-high mound of bhajis and pakoras arrived at the table and Singh set about it. In between mouthfuls, and sometimes alarmingly during them, he told the story of Rhys Butler. ‘Normally, it would be a uniform matter, a brawl outside a nightclub. But we got dragged in because of who was involved.’ He grinned. ‘Course, there are them as think we should have just let young Rhys kick the shit out of Robbie, on account of Robbie set up the winning goal for the Vics against Villa in the cup quarter-final last year. But despite what you might have heard about West Midlands, we don’t stand for that kind of nonsense no more round here.’

Sam bit into a perfect fish pakora-crisp on the outside, meltingly moist inside-and began to revise his initial impression of the Shishya as just another identikit curry house. ‘Great food,’ he said, correctly estimating the way to Singh’s heart.

The big man lit up. ‘Fan-bloody-tastic, innit? Anyway, by the time we arrive, it’s all over. According to the witnesses, Robbie came out of the club with a couple of mates, and Rhys Butler threw himself at him, fists and feet flying. Lucky for Robbie, our Mr Butler’s not much cop when it comes to fighting. He lands a couple of kicks and punches, but Robbie’s mates soon drag him off and hang on to him till my colleagues in uniform get there. Once we arrive, we
decide to take everybody down the nick and sort it out there, away from prying eyes and cameras.’

Nothing remained of the appetizers but a scatter of crumbs. Before Sam could draw breath, the plate was whisked away and replaced by half a dozen bowls of various main dishes. A platter of mushroom biryani appeared, flanked by stacks of assorted Indian breads. The varied aromas tickled Sam’s nose, kindling a hunger he hadn’t anticipated. Singh piled his plate high, gesturing to Sam to do the same. He didn’t need a second invitation.

‘At first, Robbie’s all for letting it go. He’s not really hurt, people get carried away, no harm done, blah, blah, blah. Then I mention Butler’s name and suddenly it’s all, “Throw the book at the bastard, bang him up, danger to society.” I don’t get it, frankly. I leave him ranting at my oppo, and I head back down to the interview room to see if Butler wants to talk about it. And then it all comes out. How Bindie Blyth is the love of his life, only Robbie’s come between them, and he’s not treating her like he should. So Butler decided to teach him a lesson.’

Singh pointed with his fork at a dark brown stew. ‘You’ve got to get yourself outside that. Lamb and spinach and aubergine and nobody but my auntie knows what spices. I tell you, you’d sell your granny for a bowl of that.’ He tore off a chunk of paratha and scooped up the lamb stew, dextrously getting the loaded bread into his mouth without spilling a drop.

‘So I lay it out for him. How, if he carries on like this, he’s going to end up behind bars. And how that will destroy a nice middle-class lad like him. How he’ll lose his home, his job…And that’s when he
really loses it. Tears and snotters, the lot. Turns out he’s already lost his job. That’s what’s tipped him over the edge. So we have a little chat and by the end of it, he’s seen the error of his ways.’ He paused to shovel more food down.

‘Great grub,’ said Sam. ‘I really appreciate this after the week I’ve had. So what happened then?’

‘Well, I go back to have another word with Robbie. I point out he’s not going to be doing any favours to his girlfriend or himself if he drags this poor pathetic bastard through the courts. I tell him how Butler is promising never to contact Bindie again, to leave her alone from this day forward, and how I think the best thing for everybody is to give Butler a caution and let the whole thing drop. Robbie’s not thrilled with that, but he does see the sense of keeping it all out of the papers. Eventually, I promise I’ll keep a personal eye on Butler, and Robbie caves in. And we agree that if Bindie hears from Butler again, I’ll have him for harassment.’ He looked expectantly at Sam.

‘And?’ Sam dutifully said.

‘I kept my word. Every couple of weeks for the next few months, I dropped in unannounced on Butler. First time, the place was papered with photos of Bindie and articles about her. I told him he should get rid of the stuff. That if he was planning on getting over her and getting a life, he needed to not be seeing her face every minute of the day. Next time I went, the place was clean. You’d not have known he’d ever heard of her. And so it went on. I never heard a dickie bird from her or from Robbie, so I guess he kept his word. Then, about six weeks ago, he finally managed
to get another job. Moved away to Newcastle and that’s all she wrote.’ He turned his attention away from the food briefly and hunted through his pockets. He drew a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Sam. ‘Forwarding address in Geordieland.’

Sam pocketed it without looking. This new job…What is it that Butler actually does for a living?’

Jonty Singh gave a slow, wicked grin, revealing a slick of spinach filling the gap between his front teeth. ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ he said. ‘He works as a lab assistant. In the pharmacology industry.’

Carol was right. He was snatching at ghosts. But not the ones she imagined. Tony rolled his head from side to side on the pillow. He needed to talk, but there was no possible listener for him. He couldn’t involve Carol in this because there were things about himself he did not want her to know. The only psychiatrist he trusted enough to unburden himself to was on a sabbatical in Peru. And he couldn’t imagine explaining these ills to one of Mrs Chakrabarti’s acolytes.

He sighed and pressed the nurse call button. There was someone he could trust to keep his secrets. The only question was whether they would let Tony pay him a visit.

It took twenty minutes, a call to Grisha Shatalov, a wheelchair and a porter, but finally Tony found himself alone with the chilled corpse of Robbie Bishop. Tony’s chair was backed against the rack of mortuary drawers, Robbie pulled out next to him. ‘I wouldn’t have recognized you,’ Tony said as the door closed behind the porter. ‘I promise I’m going to do all I can
to help Carol find the person who did this to you. In return, you can listen to me for a while.

‘There are some things you can never say to another living soul. Not when you do what I do. Nothing could prepare you for the horror and disgust you’d see on their faces. And that would just be the start of it. They wouldn’t be able to let it go. They’d have to do something about it. Something about me.

‘And I really don’t want them to do something about me. Not because I’m happy, pain-free and well adjusted. Because obviously I’m none of those things. How could I be, doing what I do?

‘But what I am is well-balanced. What is it that W.B. Yeats says? “In balance with this life, this death.” That’s me. In perfect equilibrium on the tipping point between life and death, sanity and madness, pleasure and pain.

‘You mess with that at your peril.

‘So, this isn’t about me wanting to change. Because I don’t see any need for change. I can live with myself very well, thank you. But when you do what I do, it’s impossible to deny it has an impact. I’m subject to the opinions of others, after all. People who are not like me–and that accounts for about ninety-nine per cent of the population, I’d say–constantly make judgements about me that are based more on their needs than on my truth. That’s why I don’t want anyone to hear what I have to say about my mother. Especially Carol.

‘I passed the local primary on my way to buy milk the other morning and there they were, the kids and the parents, every expression from delight to despair on both sets of faces. It made me wonder about my
own childhood memories. There are lots of fragments-an image of a living room whose owner I can’t now put a name to, the taste of dandelion and burdock tied eternally to the sound of rain on the scullery roof, the smell of my grandmother’s dog, the feel of damp grass on my knees, the shocking intensity of wild strawberries on the tongue. Fragments, but not many fully formed incidents.’ He ran a hand over his face and sighed.

‘I’ve sat in group therapy sessions and listened to other people talking at length and in remarkable detail about things that happened to them as children. I can’t be sure whether they were remembering for real, making it up, or constructing a story that fit the few key elements they really could dredge up from the sludge of memory. All I know is that it doesn’t match the way my memory works. Not that I’d want their memories. They veer from the banal to the truly horrendous. None of them talks about childhood the way writers and poets and film-makers do. These are not histories you would feel any nostalgia for.

‘That’s the one thing I do have in common with those non-fragmentary narrators. I have no nostalgia for my childhood. I am not the person at the dinner party who waxes lyrical about the endless summers of childhood, the golden light on skinned knees and the delicious pleasures of gang huts and tree houses. On the rare occasions when I get invited, I am the one who sits mute on the subject of their youth. Trust me, nobody wants to hear the few joined-up bits I can remember.

‘An example. I’m playing on the rug in front of the fire at my gran’s house. My gran collects ship
ha’pennies for reasons too obscure to have stuck in my mind. There’s a whole biscuit tin full of them, almost too heavy for me to lift. I’m allowed to play with the ha’pennies, and I like to build castle walls with them. The best part is pretending to be the enemy after they’re finished; they collapse in a very satisfying way. So I’m on the rug with the ha’pennies, minding my own business. Gran is watching the telly but it’s a grown-up programme so I’m not interested.

‘The door opens and my mum comes in, damp with rain from the walk from the bus stop. She smells of smoke and fog and stale perfume. She takes her coat off like she’s fighting it. She flumps down in the armchair, scrabbling in her bag for her cigarettes and sighing. Gran’s mouth tightens and she gets up to make some tea. While she’s gone, Mum ignores me, tilting her head back to blow smoke at the ceiling. Picturing her face now, I see it as petulant and put-upon. I didn’t have the words as a child, but I knew even then to keep my distance.

‘Gran brought the tea through and handed a mug to Mum. She took a sip, pulled a face because it was too hot, then put it down on the broad arm of the chair. Her sleeve must have caught it as she moved her hand away, for it tipped into her lap. She jumped up, scalded, doing a funny little dance, kicking the ha’pennies all over the floor.

‘And I laughed.

‘I wasn’t laughing at her. God knows, I understood only too well by then that pain was never comical. My laughter was nervous, a release of anxiety and surprise. But, beside herself with hurt and shock, my mum understood nothing of that. She yanked me to
my feet by the hair and slapped me so hard my hearing stopped functioning. I could see her mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear a thing. My scalp was a shivering sheath of agony and my face stung like I’d been swiped with a bundle of nettles.

‘Next thing was, Gran pushed Mum back into the chair. Mum let go my hair as she dropped down, then Gran grabbed me by the shoulder, marched me into the hall and threw me into the cupboard so hard I bounced off the back wall. It was morning before the door opened again.

‘I know this wasn’t an isolated incident. I know that because I have so many different fragments of sojourns in the cupboard. What I don’t have, by and large, are whole incidents. Various professionals have offered to help me fill in the blanks, as if that would somehow be desirable. As if it would be a treat for me to have access to more lovely memories like that one.

‘They’re more crazy than I am.’ He sighed. ‘And now she’s back. She’s been out of my life for so long I could kid myself that I was over her. Like a bad love affair. But I’m not.’ He rolled himself forward and pushed the drawer close. ‘Thanks for listening. I owe you one.’

Blinking the tears from his eyes, Tony manoeuvred the wheelchair over to the phone. He didn’t quite understand why, but something inside him had shifted, leaving him indefinably easier. He dialled the porters’ extension. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m done.’